Between wakefulness and slumber, an elderly builder tells the Florentines everything they need to know regarding the Sienese defenses.

Presented by: Fabrizio Nevola, Medici Archive Project Fellow

DOCUMENT CITATION:
Archivio di Stato di Firenze, Mediceo del Principato 425, fol. 261 (Entry 7392 in the "Documentary Sources" database.)

TRANSLATION:
[...]My Most Excellent Lord Duke, this is Jacopo di Piero Pieri who presents himself to you, a Florentine and Your Excellency's good but humble servant. I am and have been an overseer of the fortifications at Poggibonsi and I was then sent by Alessandro del Caccia to oversee the builders and workmen building the furnaces at San Petorne in your Excellency's camp. My duty is not merely limited to doing my own job, as I am alert to everything that touches Your Excellency's interests and honor. Your Excellency can thus recognize the merit of such special efforts and favor me in my humble affairs.

A few evenings ago I was with my masons and workmen. I had just settled down to sleep when I heard master Bastiano da Colle talking, a man who is about 70 years of age. He said that since he was old and ancient, he had worked as a builder for many years in that area and on one occasion had worked on a construction project adjacent to the walls of Siena. This project involved building a palace for a nobleman and he claimed that this created a 50 braccia weakness along the walls, between the fortress and the Porta Camollia. Underneath this palace, he recalled that there was a cellar filled with earth leading directly outside the city walls. Bastiano indicated that it would be easy to sabotage the walls by bringing down a 50 braccia-long section under the cover of darkness, using protective shields so that soldiers could approach the walls and insert scaffolds and wooden boards into the relevant section. Then they could set fire to the scaffolding in order to bring down the walls. All of this he said to himself, believing me to be asleep.

I didn't think that I should keep silent about this matter and I thus brought it to the attention of Messer Alessandro del Caccia who told me to talk to Messer Bartolomeo Concini, which I did. He in turn said that I should talk with Messer Giuliano del Tovaglia who would be bringing some other business to Your Excellency. I did this yesterday morning, the sixth of May, and Messer Giuliano replied that this information was worthwhile and should be shared with his superiors. In this way I am forwarding it to Your Excellency rather than trusting merely to my clumsy writing. Even if you choose to pay it no heed, you will know that I was moved by the same affection as Curtius the Roman when he lept into the chasm [...]

TEXT:
[...] Ecelentissimo signor ducha, richore a l'ecelenza vostra il povero et buon servitore di quela Iacopo di Piero Pieri, Fiorentino, il quale sono e sono stato solecitatore agli aforzificamentii di Pogibonzi di poi da Alexandro dell Chaca fui mandato a rasegniare et solecitare e' muratori et manovali che murano et ano murato a' forni di San Petorne, nel chanpo di vostra Eccelenza. Et non solo il fare bene l'ufizio mio di quello mi tocha, vo pensando a tute quele chose che sieno honore e utile di vostra ecceletzia. Et tanto piu farò anchora che per voi ne vadia questa misera vita quando averò un pocho di favore dal'ecelentzia vostra, chi possa chon piu ardire gridare a chi merita. Trovandomi piu sere fa fra mia muratori e manovali mentre io mero achonco a dormire io senti Maestro Bastiano da Chole omo d'età dani 70 el quale disse per essere per anticho e vechio e solito murare in queste bande fè una debolezza di braccia 50 di mura della città di Siena tra la loro forteza e la porta a Chamolia dove gia à atachato chon le mura un gentiluomo Sanese fondo un palazo e desotto le mura una chantina ripiena di tera che pase in Siena dove chorun ghatto ovvero ghabioni o altri ripari una note metendo certi tavoloni e puntegli di poi da armaiuoli che scalzasino e mesi puntegli e a detti puntegli dar fuocho anderebbe in terra braccia 50 di mura e tutto diceva fra suo chredendo chio dormisi. Non parendo cose da tacersi, ne deti aviso a Mes. Alesandro del Chaca, et suo Sig. Mi rimese che ne parlasi chon Mes. Bartolomeo Concini, chol quale ne ragionai. Mi rispuose che veniva per altri negotzi a l'ecelentzia vostra che io ne parlassi con Mes. Giuliano del Tovaglia, chol quale ne parlai e ier mattina che fumo a sei di magio mi respuose io ho charo questo aviso e ne farò cho mia magiori bisognando, manderò perche non ò restato chon questo mio rozo schritto darne aviso a l'ecelentzia vostra e chaso che quela no ne tengha chonto io ven'ò avisato chon quela afetzione ch'usò Churtzio Romano quando e'saltò nela voragine [...]

HISTORICAL CONTEXT:
Throughout most of 1553, Cosimo I de' Medici, Duke of Florence, remained nominally neutral while war raged in the southern portion of the Sienese State. By the autumn, however, Bartolomeo Concini (the Duke's secretary) had negotiated an alliance against Siena with Emperor Charles V. Meanwhile, King Henri II of France had named Piero Strozzi (Cosimo de' Medici's most virulent enemy and leader of the exiled Florentine opposition) as chief commander of the Sienese army. [For Piero Strozzi, see "WHAT'S YOUR POISON?", the September 1999 "Document of the Month."

Strozzi's appointment was an inevitable challenge to Cosimo de' Medici's previously passive role in the struggle. Then in January 1554, the Imperial troops brought the war to the very gates of Siena, initiating a sixteen-month siege. The Medici could no longer avoid full military involvement and they established a series of permanent camps around Siena. Their headquarters (from which the present letter was written) was at Poggibonsi, in the massive fortress of Poggio Imperiale, built by Lorenzo the Magnificent sixty years earlier, in order to secure the Florentine-Sienese border.

Espionage and counter-espionage flourished on both sides throughout 1554, as the beleaguered Sienese strove to break the siege and their opponents sought to hasten its conclusion by penetrating the local defenses. In February and March of 1554, the leading Florentine military engineer Giovanni Battista Bellucci elaborated a series of ingenious schemes. One involved cutting off the Sienese water supply by damming the underground springs on which they depended. Another sought to bring down sections of the city wall by placing explosive charges in tunnels. Unfortunately for the Florentines, Bellucci died in a minor skirmish in late March, leaving them with a range of unexecuted plans and a dearth of essential technical expertise. [See N. Adams and S. Pepper, Firearms and Fortifications: Military Architecture and Siege Warfare in Sixteenth Century Siena, Chicago/London 1986.]

Jacopo di Piero Pieri wrote his letter on 8 May 1554, at the very time when the Florentines were desperately seeking new solutions. Pieri, a mid-level engineer in the Medici service, overheard the comatose ramblings of one of his workmen, Bastiano da Colle, and this intelligence quickly made its way up the chain of command, by way of Alessandro del Caccia, Cosimo de' Medici's commissioner for the Sienese war. Pieri was clearly convinced of the tangible value of his offering and requested personal advancement by way of recompense.

Pieri's allusion to his "clumsy writing" should not be dismissed as graceful modesty. His letter is labored in expression, inconsistent in spelling and obviously the effort of a man unused to committing his thoughts to paper. In this context, the final learned flourish is somewhat startling. Marcus Curtius was the exemplar of heroic self-sacrifice, having cast himself (on horseback, in full armor) into a chasm that appeared suddenly in the midst of the Roman forum. Did Pieri really see himself as a modern-day Curtius, throwing himself into a breach in the walls of Siena and leading the Medici to an age of imperial glory worthy of the Romans? Or was he merely trying to rise to an unaccustomed occasion by pulling out a classical tag remembered from his school days or else gleaned more recently from a picture or a popular entertainment?

The potentially unsound expanse of city wall evidently ran for fifty-braccia (approximately thirty meters) between the casemate, a fortified tower designed by Baldassarre Peruzzi in the 1530's, and a five-pointed fortress designed by Giovan Battista Pelori around 1552, on the remains of the citadel erected by the Spanish governor Don Diego de Mendoza around 1550. [For Diego de Mendoza, see "WINE, WOMEN AND SONG, if all else fails", the November 2000 "Document of the Month".

It is not clear whether Duke Cosimo ever sought to turn Bastiano da Colle's mumbled words into action nor whether Jacopo di Piero Pieri ever received his hoped-for reward. Throughout the spring and summer of 1554, the Florentine and Imperial troops continued their efforts to break the Sienese defenses and force their way into the city. As it happened, when Siena eventually fell on 17 April 1555, the chief factor was the threat of starvation not overt offensive action. Later that same year, Cosimo de' Medici signed a treaty with Emperor Charles V, buying Siena as a perpetual fiefdom and thereby creating the Grand Dukedom of Tuscany.